Holding Moonlight
by Perivates
Summary: Just a short ZADR drabble about how a relationship might form between them.


**Holding Moonlight**

It was a strange thing, how their relationship evolved over the years. In the early days, Dib spent most of his time collecting data on the alien, trying to prove to the world what it refused to see. A poor disguise was always so easily accepted, especially if it matched their oversimplified worldview. They never wanted to see anything more than a human, albeit strange, green kid.

But then, they never wanted to see anything that Dib tried to offer to their unquestioning eyes. No amount of evidence would ever be enough. Yet, somehow, he'd convinced himself that if only he could show them the alien himself--exposed, studied, evaluated--then maybe it would be enough to make people _listen _to him, just maybe. He had to cling to this belief. It was, after all, the only thing he had to keep him going.

Yet, as time went on, he realized that wasn't entirely true. Yes, it had begun because he wanted to be believed in his exposing of Zim for the alien he was; but when faced with the constant challenge of saving the world on a near daily basis, it became so much more. He was no longer fighting for the truth. He was fighting for the lives of the people who didn't believe him, who didn't give a damn's worth about his little "games" with the weird foreign kid.

For a while. he'd consoled himself with the belief that he was doing what was _right,_ what was necessary. If he didn't protect these willfully ignorant people, who would? No one, and Zim would win, and he'd be damned sooner than allow that to happen.

Maybe, if he won, if he finally showed Zim for what he truly was, they would accept Dib. If they understood what he went through, how he saved all of them from their dooms, they would be indebted to him. They would _have _to believe him. They'd have to.

All his struggles, all the fights and injuries and setbacks, they had to mean something. They couldn't all be in vain. Dib had a purpose, and that purpose was to show people truths they refused. The truth was the highest of all purposes, so he had to triumph over evil and ignorance eventually... They would have to believe.

But as time wore on, a shadow of doubt crept into the dark corners of his mind, and it festered there like an infection until he could no longer ignore it.

_What if I fail? What if I can never prove anything to these people? What if it all really is in vain, and I'm just wasting my life for nothing? What if, what if, what if?_

Proving anything to people unwilling to see what was right before them was always the heaviest burden of proof to carry. If someone lived in a nightless world, even holding moonlight in your hand for him to see would never be enough.

Was that really all he was doing, just trying to capture moonlight for people who wouldn't even gaze up to see something looming overhead, so easily observed by anyone who would just _look?_

It wasn't until he'd actually captured Zim that Dib was forced to answer this question that plagued him for so long. It was accidental, really; Zim had managed to incapacitate himself with one of his own dysfunctional devices for world domination. Dib had simply been watching _(spying) _nearby, not really expecting such an opportunity to be so readily handed to him.

In that moment, he'd had all the proof he could ask for. He had Zim, the alien himself, at his utter mercy.

But as the light from the midnight sky danced across green skin and reflected despairing defeat in those inhuman eyes, he knew. He knew that not even _this _would ever be enough for them.

But it was enough for him. And so he let him go. After all, one can never hold moonlight: he can only ever chase it.

He came to enjoy the chase, and with it, the infrequent moments when Zim would allow the other to catch him. Initially with traps, later with arms and lips. The change didn't come because Dib forgot about the alien's goal; but just as he could never hope to stop the waning and waxing of the Earth's skybound satellite, he came to accept that this was simply the way things were with this creature orbiting his existence. Though, it did help that Zim was rather inept when it came to conquering the "dirtball" planet.

Now, as he lay beside the dozing alien, he couldn't resist the smile that stole across his lips as his eyes followed the patterns that moonlight pouring through his window dappled over verdant skin.

Maybe he couldn't show the moonlight to anyone else, but he could at least hold onto it for himself.


End file.
